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Ultrasound

Northwest Healthcare uses ultrasound as a painless, non-invasive way to diagnose a variety of diseases and conditions without the use of radiation, making this a widely used procedure during pregnancy. Sometimes called sonography, ultrasounds bounce high-frequency sound waves off the body to produce a real-time picture of the internal structures including organ formation, movement and blood flow.

During an ultrasound, you are positioned on an examination table and clear gel is applied to the body part that will be examined. A transducer that produces sound waves is placed firmly on the skin and moved back and forth. The sounds waves produced by the transducer flow freely through the gel and bounce back to the transducer. As the sound waves echo back to the transducer, it records the strength and character of the reflected waves to create images of the organs. The examination usually takes less than 30 minutes.